March 9, 2006

Great! We get rid of four of these clowns. Melissa is wearing a watermelon-patterned top that makes her breasts look like... watermelons. After a quick recap of the performances this week, they bring out Bo Bice to do his single, "The Real Thing." It's not the song I associate with that phrase, but some new song. He sweats a lot and I mostly ignore him.

There's a promo for the new show "Unanimous." They lock a bunch of people in a vault until they decide unanimously which one of them should receive $1 million. It seems kind of like a jury, needing to reach unanimity. I wonder what the rules are, because it seems too obvious that one person would get himself chosen by promising to divide the money equally among all of them.

Kinnik Skye is told very straightforwardly that she has the least votes among the women. That's a new twist! She gets to redo her losing song, and I get to use the TiVo remote.

They switch over to the guys and tell Will Makar that he's got the least votes of the men. He's a sweet young guy -- only 17 -- but he's got to go. He sings his song a lot better than last night.

Now, they switch to a positive process, identifying the contestants who make the final 12. For a second, it seems that the odd one out is going to be Melissa, but, no, it's Ayla, and so my two picks to leave -- in the female category -- are in fact leaving. Ayla fights not to completely burst out crying. Oh, don't feel sorry for her. She's beautiful, tall, a basketball player, and a straight-A student. She'll be fine.

I only picked one guy to go, Ace, but he makes it. It comes down to Bucky and Gedeon. And Gedeon is eliminated! I'm surprised. He was one of my favorites. Too bad! We see Paris Bennett crying, and Ace is comforting her. Why did "America" do that?

We had a chance this season for some Sam Cooke and Motown, at least for a while. Instead we are left with treacly high school talent show crap and puppy dog mugging for the camera. I am disgusted and my AI viewing is over for this year.

Oh, good Lord. "Country folk" is now a "race" toward whom we're now supposed to police ourselves in regard to insensitive remarks?

More than half of American Idol is about product (i.e. contestant) positioning on the part of the producers. Bucky is being intentionally positioned by those same producers as the biggest bumpkin to come out of the hills since Jethro Bodine. People who can't have fun with that kind of thing worry me.

I also think Gedeon's elimination had less to do with race than he just seemed to come from another time and place. I'm not sure black voters could relate to him any more than white ones could -- with his God-speak and big smile. I'll miss him.

Gedeon had this weird way of talking ... very precise ... almost scripted in a way. And the smile was odd too as Simon noted a few weeks ago. Maybe he was just hard to warm up to.

Maybe he should have been the one who strapped on a guitar and played some Hendrix...

He could sing though and I hope he goes for it. I was very surprised that he was voted out.

And to add on to my comment in the last AI post about Will's song from last night, it was the James Taylor version that was on the radio during my impressionable years. For whatever reason, I had completely forgotten that Marvin Gaye had done it originally. Found out that Junior Walker and the All Stars did it a year after Marvin. That's quite a history for a song.

Ann, you're right...Long, long distance between Will and Marvin. I still hated the arrangement though.

My comment was not that voters are racist. Rather, there is a demographic for votes, and when there are large number of contestants left, one contestant might fit the same demographic as another, and so a decent contestant can get kicked off prematurely. This is what happened in I think season two, when there were a few very talented female black singers and one of them was voted off prematurely.

Gedeon is much better than Kevin. But Kevin plays to a different demographic. Do the top 12 go on tour, or just the top 10? If it is the top 12, it unfortunate that the no-talent Kevin, beat out the very talented Gedeon.

In any event, I think Gedeon's exposure will get him some kind of record deal.